Sumia Jaama/Juxun (SO/NL/UK) is a poet, producer and educator currently based between Rotterdam and London. She often writes about memory, movement and the cyclical process of leaving. Her poem ‘Passports as Freedom Papers I’ was shorlisted for The White Review Poet’s Prize 2022 and ‘Before Leaving’ won the FourHubs’ 2018 Poetry Prize. Sumia is a Barbican Young Poet Alumni and most recently published in Filigree: Contemporary Black British Poetry. She is also founder of SAWTI and programme lead (Social Practices) at Willem de Kooning Academy.

Her work with SAWTI – https://sawti.co.uk – as founder and lead programmer included establishing a multi-lingual storytelling project that focuses on cross-collaboration between East African artists on the continent with the diaspora. The collective efforts of this work contributed to ongoing conversations interrogating the limitations of borders locally and linguistically whilst adding to the long-standing traditions of language and locale within Sudanese and Tanzanian literary and visual art for you can visit the Digital zine here – https://sawti.co.uk/zine/. Sumia recently shared her learnings in an interview with Kate Wallis for Wasafiri Magazine Issue 105, Spring 2021 https://www.wasafiri.org/product/wasafiri-issue-105/ titled: ‘Working Creatively Across Media, Language and Location: East Africa-UK Literary Collaborations’.

Sumia’s interests centres community, care, liberation, familial archives and artistic license – you can read more on this in an interview with visual artist Daniela Yohannes (https://danielayohannes.space/_ here: ttps://drive.google.com/file/d/1j_gUySB-FGIt1BaEXdKQRYuPN6yt99Yp/view

Sumia’s work within heritage, poetry and the visual arts extends to producing and curating conversations and connections. She has co-produced the following highlights in 2021:

• Heritage of Future Past – https://www.britishcouncil.org/arts/culture-development/our-stories/heritage-future-past
• Shubbak Festival x Cultural Protection Fund: Against Disappearance series on Contemporary Culture and Heritage – https://www.shubbak.co.uk/against-disappearance-discussion-cultural-heritage/
• CRIN x Sawti: Tabula Rasa: Poetry Night – https://rights-studio.org/festival/tabula-rasa/